Small Charities = Big Impact

Lisa Lewis

Jun 16, 20204 min read

Updated: Jun 17, 2020

Small Charity Week 15th to 20th June 2020

Small Charity Week celebrates and raises awareness of the essential work of the UK’s small charity sector who make an invaluable contribution to the lives of millions of individuals, communities and causes across the UK and the rest of the world.

Never underestimate the value of small charities and their ability to not only deliver much needed services, but also to promote social cohesion, individual wellbeing and civic engagement within our society. Unfortunately, the public and private sectors have historically failed to recognise and respect the special relationships the charity sector has with their local communities

This failure is mainly due to the difficulties that charities, especially the smaller ones, face in measuring the impact of their services. Throughout my career as CEO, I sometimes struggled to meet the needs of funders in their requests for monitoring and provision of 'hard outcomes' i.e. quantitative data due to the nature of our services. The 'soft outcomes' were much easier to prove but far harder to actually monitor and evaluate.

Soft indicators / outcomes:

Confidence and motivation changes;
Feelings – of well-being, of safety, of satisfaction;
Personal skills – problem solving, time management and social skills; and
Social cohesion and collective sense of place and purpose.

Often changes in these indicators are more important than the ‘hard’ indicators. For example, someone with increased confidence, motivation and interpersonal skills will be more likely to secure a job and stay in it, even if it takes them time to find it.

According to a Charity Commission report in September 2019 the charity sector is seen as an increasingly important part of society within the deliver of services that have been traditionally provided by the public sector e.g .in areas such as homelessness, cancer research, loneliness etc

Facts and figures:

There are 168,000 charities in England and Wales
The largest sectors of activity are provision of social services, culture and recreation = one third of all charities
Most are small
Approx 75% have an income of less than £100,000 a year
1% of charities have an income of over £5m a year
Most charities depend on volunteers to deliver the majority of their activities and services
Nearly 1 in 2 adults in England volunteer once a month
Over 2 billion hours are spent volunteering each year in the UK. This is equivalent to 1..25 million full time employees

Unique characteristics of a charity:

Trust - meeting high standards of conduct and behaviour
Local roots - participating in local communities and their ability to connect with, and establish links with, local people
Experts - they provide expertise in their area and in how to deliver for the public
Speaking out - they provide a voice for the most vulnerable.

The five components to the value of a charity:

Direct value to the public in receipt of charitable services: those who are specifically identified in the defined purpose of the charity (e.g. former armed forces personnel, elderly and infirm, vulnerable children etc).
Value to members of the public who act as volunteers for charities: those who give their time and, in turn, derive value linked to the services they deliver but often also in terms of the social bonds they form or the catharsis offered (e.g. for some working at a charity related to the loss of a loved one).
Wider value to members of the public who donate to charities, beyond the value of their donation: who, like volunteers, create and derive value directly linked to the services provided but also may derive value from a range of less tangible impacts on themselves including everything from their social standing to tax relief to emotional wellbeing. The latter explains why people often donate to causes linked to events in their lives, rather than based on any formal analysis of the highest returns for their money.
Wider value to the employees of charities, beyond their salaries: whose value is only partly reflected in their salaries because, at least for some, they willingly earn less than they would earn in alternative jobs for which they are qualified.
Wider benefit to society through their broad role in society as distinct to their specific impacts on individuals: charities make wider contributions through their participation in public and private debates relevant to their services, in providing an alternative point of view from private and public sector organisations and an alternative means by which people can engage with that point of view.

There are significant risks for charities if they are unable to quantitatively measure the impact that they have on their communities. However, it is possible to measure the 'soft indicators' through using a wide range of qualitative evidence such as case studies

Ways of measuring impact:

Value of service to the direct recipient
Value of the charity to the volunteers
Value of the benefits to the members of public who donate
Value to the employees
Value to the public or society in general

In conclusion:

So as we celebrate Small Charities Week let us remember that the current Covid-19 virus has changed the way that the public and private sectors view the voluntary sector in a way that we could never have predicted.

Small charities and tiny (often new and unregistered) community groups have proved themselves to be the key factors in keeping society functioning during lockdown by providing essential lifelines to individuals who are self isolating and unable to leave the house.

Here in Wiltshire many of the small rural villages, with limited facilities, amenities and transport links, are all setting up local community groups to ensure that their residents are looked after by ensuring that their physical and practical needs (ie shopping) are met. An additional, and just as important, lifeline that is being offered is regular remote, virtual or telephone contact in order to prevent isolation and loneliness.

Extensive provision of these wellbeing services by community groups is proving that the qualitative soft outcomes are just as important for the nation as the services that can provide the quantitative hard outcomes that have always been taken more seriously.

I truly hope that long after lockdown is lifted, the public will remember that